Focus on Learning, Transform Teaching

Thinking Maps to Promote Critical Thinking through the Teaching of Literature in the ESL Context

“…Tasks or activities given to students should be more complex and challenging so that students would be able to solve any problems by using critical thinking skills (Kuh, 2001). Most students do not have a high level of skills (Weimer, 2003) and as such, critical thinking skills must be implicated in the curriculum and syllabus so that students have the opportunity to practice them (Ewing, 2006) and this is actually associated to the use of thinking maps in the English language lessons.…”

A Review of the Studies on the Frequent Administrations of English Tests

“…In this respect, studies have shown that through frequent tests, students would be encouraged to keep up their study (Weimer, 2003). These results have further shown that frequent test administrations improve both grades and motivation.…”

Teacher educators talk about enduring understandings

“…As Weimer (2003) has pointed out, the kind of commitment we made to teaching and learning challenged us to "revisit longheld assumptions about who's responsible for what in the teachinglearning process" (p. 48), and that this is highly effective. Indeed we did find that the introduction of the EUs changed the ways we handled "central elements of instruction like course [paper] design and assessment" (Weimer, 2003, p. 48) and that our new commitment changed what we did with students in lectures and tutorials.…”

“…This can contribute to what Weimer (2003) has claimed is a "coverage model" and we were aware that this kind of model had begun to lead to our students being told what they needed to know. However Weimer's assertion that tertiary teachers' key aim should be to "build their students'' knowledge base and develop their learning skills and learner selfawareness" (p. 51) was one we agreed with, even though we knew any decision to let go of content would be a difficult one.…”